Moving Beyond the Deficit Model: Convincing Scientists to Adopt Dialogue and Participation Communication Styles to Restore Public Trust in Scientists


Presenter: Arin Connolly

Faculty Sponsor: ROSA A. MOSCARELLA

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Public Health and Epidemiology

Session: Poster Session 6, 4:15 PM - 5:00 PM, Auditorium, A51

ABSTRACT

Public trust in United States scientists has yet to fully recover from concentrated anti-vaccine efforts and political attacks from 2021 to 2024. Analyzing this trend reveals that the United States’s “crisis of trust in science” stems from widespread doubt among residents about whether scientists share their beliefs and values. Unfortunately, current science communication strategies are ill-equipped to address a crisis of trust related to values. The state of public trust in science necessitates a discipline-wide transition from traditional deficit-style communication to more recent dialogue and participation models that prioritize nonjudgmental listening, discussion of values, and co-creation of goals for community action.

This study focuses on how scientists can persuade fellow researchers to adopt combined dialogue-participatory communication strategies. To do this, I will partner with professors at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to implement an undergraduate communication workshop. This workshop will be dedicated to engaging future scientists in conversations about declining trust, current issues in science communication, and the potential of dialogue. Pre- and post-program surveys will be administered to assess attendees’ perceptions of trust in scientists, attitudes towards different models of scientific communication, and event satisfaction. Survey results, analyzed with R and artificial intelligence algorithms, will be presented, along with a summary of the study’s major conclusions. The effectiveness of similar scientific community events in shifting communication attitudes will also be presented, along with suggestions for future research.

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